just must have time to think before having this out with Polk. I
sometimes feel ashamed of the catastrophes I have to pray quick about,
but what would I do if I couldn't?

I don't know how I got through the rest of this evening, but I did--I
pray for sleep. Amen!

Watching the seasons follow each other in the Harpeth Valley gives me
the agony of a dumb poet, who can feel though not sing.

It was spring when I came down here four months ago, a young, tender,
mist-veiled, lilac-scented spring that nestled firmly in your heart and
made it ache with sweetness that you hardly understood yourself.

But before I knew it the young darling, with her curls and buds and
apple-blooms had gone and summer was rioting over the gardens and fields
and hills, rich, lush colored, radiant, redolent, gorgeous, rose-scented
and pulsing with a life that made me breathless. Even the roads along
the valley were bordered with flowers that the sun had wooed to the
swooning point.

But this week, early as it is, there has been a hint of autumn in the
air, and a haze is beginning to creep over the whole world, especially
in the early mornings, which are so dew-gemmed that they seem to be
hinting a warning of the near coming of frost and snow.

My garden has grown into a perfect riot of blooms, but for the last two
weeks queer slugs have begun to eat the tender buds that are forming for
October blooming, and I have been mourning over it by day and by night
and to everybody who will listen.